The Iron Shadow
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Fräulein Doktor – the true identity of the Lady Doctor is still enshrouded in mystery. Various official intelligence reports have shown that she had existed as captured German agents spoke of her. However, she was never found and was never unmasked, leading to various urban legends. Among these was that she was a femme fatale, a beautiful seductress who made men fall at her feet; she spoke French with a perfect accent, was a chain smoker, was bejewelled from head to toe, a complete morphine addict, and was prone to acts of violence and torture, even towards her own men. Magnus Hirschfeld, the famous German physician and sexologist described her as such: ‘a woman with nerves of steel, a cold, logical engine for a mind, well controlled sensuality, a fascinating body, and demoniac eyes.’ Two identities have been put forth on she might have been – Annemarie Lesser, a field agent who became a morphine addict and was said to have joined the German secret service after the loss of her lover, and Elsbeth Schragmüller, the head of the Kriegsnachrichten Antwerpen, a school for spies in Antwerp, and who held a doctoral degree in political science, one of the first women to have been awarded one in Germany. Attempts by the Foreign Office to unmask her throughout the war met constant failure. She is regarded as the archetype of the female seductress spy so often used by Hollywood and other novelists in their spy stories.
Edith Cavell – ‘Someday, somehow, I am going to do something useful. I don’t know what it will be. I only know that it will be something for people. They are, most of them, so helpless, so hurt and so unhappy.’ Edith Cavell was born in 1865 in Swaderston, Great Britain. Following the footsteps of Florence Nightingale, she became a nurse and later moved to Belgium in 1907. There she headed the Berkendael Institute, a pioneering school for nurses in Brussels. In autumn of 1914, two stranded British soldiers sought refuge in her school where she helped them escape to neutral Holland. Soon, more followed, and along with Prince Reginald de Croÿ and his sister Princess Marie, who worked from their castle near Maubeuge in France, they set up an escape network. With the help of Philippe Baucq, an architect who served as a guide, close to two-hundred Allied soldiers and civilians managed to escape through her network. She was caught and arrested on the 3rd of August 1915 where she was trialled and later executed by a firing squad. Her death caused a great uproar at the time and her story and image was often used by the Allies as propaganda against Germany. Many soldiers even enlisted to fight Germany after hearing of her death. A famous hospital in Brussels is named after.
Prussian Junkers – meaning young lord, derived from the German jung and Herr, or Juncherre from medieval German, it was used by the Prussians as a word for nobility, an estate or land owner who had a role in the government. Junkers ruled central German government and the military at the time of the First World War. General von Jarotzky, having really existed, is an example of a Junker.
Kultur – simply meaning ‘culture’ in German, it stands for the customs, laws, and institutions upon which the Prussian people operated under and wanted to export to other nations. It was seen as the highest form of order that existed in the world. The Kaiser put it this way: ‘Great ideals have become for us Germans a permanent possession, while other nations have lost them. The German nation is now the only people left which is called upon to protect, cultivate, and promote these grand ideals.’ Thus, the Prussian Junkers believed that Germany had the right to enforce such a system and that Germany had a civilising task. Other nations were to either be Germanised or become economic vassals. Many believed that Germany had the right to control of most of Europe, wanting to create an empire of the West to be attained through violence and war. Count von Krommel’s quote ‘mountains of corpses and oceans of tears’ comes directly from the book Die Wahren Ursachen des Kriegs - The True Causes of War – written by Karl A. Kuhn.
The Iron Shadow – while the Kaiser’s Warhammer, codenamed the Iron Shadow, comes from the author’s imagination, the plan to build a super cannon to bomb London was seriously conceived during the First World War. In the book Paris Kanonen-The Paris Guns (Wilhelmgeschutze and Project Harp: the Application of Major Calibre Guns to Atmospheric and Space Research) by Gerald V. Bull and Charles H. Murphy, it is shown that experiments had been conducted for the creation of a cannon that, if fired from Cap Gris-Nez, would have wreaked havoc on London. Following the success of Big Bertha, a 42cm Type M mortar, the German Naval Board requested in 1914 the creation of a cannon that was capable of bombing Dover from Calais. Experiments began at Krupp, the company that produced the majority of artillery weapons for Germany, and through different developments it was discovered that it was possible to shell the British capital. The technical aspects for such a feat are described by Count von Krommel in his speech at the party and are taken directly from the original plans. The project was headed by Professor Rausenberg and Dr. von Eberhard. The result did not yield the cannon to bomb London but instead produced the infamous Paris Gun, unleashed on the French capital in 1918, that killed two-hundred and fifty people and wounded six-hundred and twenty causing great devastation.
The spy scare of the early 1900’s – Invasion scare fiction in the late 19th century and early 20th century produced a great deal of novels and short stories depicting Great Britain being invaded by either French or German forces. One of the most notable authors of such a genre was William Le Queux, an Anglo-French journalist and a prolific writer whose most famous work is probably Spies of the Kaiser in which he claimed that fifty-thousand German spies were operating in British soil undetected. Of course, it was all greatly exaggerated but it did heighten the existing paranoia amongst the British. The book also created a sort of ‘barber conspiracy’ in which German barbers were all seen as spies. This directly inspired the character of the Chameleon which Henry Arthur chases later in this story. The barber scare did however lead to the arrest of three real German spies who posed as barbers in 1914. It is often said that William Le Queux’s work and spymania led to the creation of the Secret Service Bureau.
The Black Panther – born in 1877 in Cape Colony, Frederick Joubert Duquesne was one of the most adventurous spies of the 20th century. Codenamed ‘Black Panther’ during his time in the Second Boer War, he wanted Lord Kitchener dead after discovering that the farm his family lived in had been destroyed due to the Lord’s scorched earth policy, while his sister had been raped and killed and his mother was dying in a British concentration camp. Vowing revenge, he disguised as a British officer and infiltrated British troops, hoping to kill Lord Kitchener. However, he was found and arrested, due to be shot for espionage. His sentence was later reduced to life-imprisonment. He managed to escape his prison in Bermuda and during World War I became a spy for Germany. Duquesne often stated that it was his involvement that led to the destruction of the ship HMS Hampshire which killed Lord Kitchener.
Acknowledgements
This book you are holding in your hands wouldn’t have been possible without the help of numerous people. I’d like to start out by thanking my parents whose encouraging words were always there for me from day one, not only for the writing of this novel but also from when I first picked up a pen and began to scribble stories in notebooks as a child.
A heartfelt thank you goes to my agent, Gregory Messina, who believed in me and this novel and whose kindness, hard work, and determination are always immensely appreciated.
To Dave King and his word-chopping, red-crossing, and phrase-swapping editorial ninja skills which have been fundamental to the completion of this book. You are the king of editors (and yes, that pun was intended).
I am grateful to Dr. Michael Palo whose classes at Vesalius College back in 2009 got me interested in First World War espionage, and who was one of the first people to read this book and offer input.
A profound thank you goes to Eleanor Umphres for the advice, kind words, and encouragement, and whose friendship I am grateful for.
To my late uncle Alberto Indelicato, thank you for reading this novel and for your inspiring words.
To the team at E
ndeavour Media Ltd. for having brought this book to life and for having done an amazing job.
And last but not least to you my dear reader, wherever you may be reading this book – at the bus stop, in bed, on a beach, or elsewhere – I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you.